Tuesday, September 4, 2012

I invite you to link up to your best grocery deals below, to inspire others to save more!

Last week, I spent more than $120 on groceries for my family of 5. This week, I spent close to half of that!

How did I cut my budget so quickly?

Pretty easy... I didn't buy meat this week, which was half my expense last week, and just used the meat that I had on hand.

If you're really looking to cut your grocery budget in half in just one week, I'm sorry to say that it's not that easy. But as you stockpile grocery staples bought on sale with coupons, you'll find your budget starting to creep downward, as you eat from food you bought in previous weeks. Eventually your budget will be much lower. I can't promise that it will decrease 50% (unless you spent many thousands of dollars a month before), but it will get smaller!

I also went to Walmart, where I bought a 5-lb bag of whole wheat flour for $3.78 and four cans of beans for 68¢ each, for a total of $6.50. And I made a quick stop at Publix on Labor Day (ALDI was closed) to get apple juice, bananas, and bagels, spending $4.18 and saving 69¢ on the bagels.

Overall, this week I spent $70.19 for items which retail for $149.58, or a 53% savings based on the retail value of the products at the stores where they were purchased. (But don't compare percentages!)

For the year (36 weeks), I spent $2,737.22 for items which retailed for $5,188.60 and saved $2,451.38, or a 47% savings. That's an average of $76.03 spent each week for a family of five (husband, wife, and daughters ages 15, 11, and 7), including lots of fresh produce, dairy items, and kosher meat, as well as paper and plastic goods, health and beauty items, and cleaning supplies.

In 2011, I spent $4,017.13 for items which retailed for $7,344.08, saving 45% and spending an average of $77.25 per week for the year.

How did your shopping go this week? What bargains did you get? Please leave a link to your blog post about your weekly shopping. The aim is not to brag, but to inspire! Please link up directly to your post, not to the blog itself. I'd appreciate it if you put a link to Wednesday Weekly Shopping in your post as well. If you don't have a blog, please leave a comment!

For more great shopping deals and trips, please check out the bloggers listed in my Linkup Parties page under Shopping Deals Linkups. I'm sure you'll find lots of great ideas on saving money on groceries!

1 comments:

I really didn't need to shop much this week. I picked up some splurgy items and a few staples at Kroger: bacon, hash browns, juice boxes, chips, bananas, milk, chocolate bars, and french fries for around $20. I went to CVS to use my Bumble Bee tuna rain check and spent 15 cents in tax for 10 cans of tuna after coupons. I went to Walgreens and bought 4 Chex, used coupons and a $2 RR and spent 32 cents in tax and got a $2 RR back. I may need to pick up some produce before I am done shopping, but not a bad week since I have replenished my stock pile over the past few weeks and meal planned around it.